holidays

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robertk
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holidays

Post by robertk »

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/life/h ... 9c6f7012a9
Taking more than three weeks’ holiday a year could lengthen your life, according to results that give another reason to look forward to summer.

Doctors should prescribe time off to people with heart problems to ensure that the stress of trying to live more healthily does not kill them, researchers said.

People who took less than three weeks off work in a year were 37 per cent more likely to die during the course of a 40-year study. “Don’t think having an otherwise healthy lifestyle will compensate for working too hard and not taking holidays,” Timo Strandberg, of the University of Helsinki, who led the research, said.

His findings arise out of research that he began in the 1970s on 1,200 businessmen. It produced the puzzling results that men who were given intensive health advice and reduced their risk of heart disease by more than half were more likely to die early.


An otherwise healthy lifestyle won’t save you in the long run if your work is stressful and not interrupted by time away from the daily grind.
An otherwise healthy lifestyle won’t save you in the long run if your work is stressful and not interrupted by time away from the daily grind.
Professor Strandberg has concluded that these deaths were concentrated in those men who did not take enough time off work. “There was a clear, significant difference,” he said. “The men who had shorter vacations, which means less than three weeks annually, had higher mortality than those who had longer vacations.” He said it was logical to think that trying to live more healthily brought its own stress. “A businessman with a high status goes to the doctor, who says that you must reduce weight and stop smoking. If you can’t do it you get stressed,” he said.

The findings were presented at the European Society of Cardiology congress in Munich. Martin Marshall, vice-chairman of the Royal College of GPs, said that family doctors “often recommend that patients take some time away from work or go on holiday if they are stressed”. Jeremy Pearson, associate medical director of the British Heart Foundation, said: “Taking time out can be a great way to relieve tension, but you can also talk to friends and family to share any troubles.”
budo
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Re: holidays

Post by budo »

Stress = cortisol (inflammation)

Anything that reduces cortisol will extend your lifespan. If you have high c-reactive protein in your blood test then odds are you have chronic inflammation (cortisol).

Things that raise cortisol

- Insulin (sugar and too much protein)
- Drama, bad thoughts, anxiety, anger
- Anything that induces fight or flight response (video games, paintball, horror movies, hunting, etc.. ) - https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/a ... 3216308731
- Caffeine and other stimulants https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2257922/
- Bad lifestyles, stressful jobs
- Compromised digestive system / gut
- Infections
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salayatananirodha
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Re: holidays

Post by salayatananirodha »

If you have to work, use your wealth wholesomely. Lay people should work; there's not anything wrong with that.
I host a sutta discussion via Zoom Sundays at 11AM Chicago time — message me if you are interested
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DNS
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Re: holidays

Post by DNS »

What about the post-vacation blues?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-vacation_blues

You go on a pleasurable trip, have a good time and then return to the "daily-grind" and miss the vacation. I've seen that occur in some people. I sometimes wonder if it might actually be better to have a little bit of 'vacation' from work, stress in every day and then skipping the week long, two week long vacations. Of course not everyone has that luxury, but if you have your own business, you can set your own hours and take time off for meditation, reading, other forms of relaxation and return to work at various hours which may not exactly fit to a 'normal' work hour day. For example, you might be able to place orders for goods and services in the morning, set assignments for workers you supervise, then go on break, then return for handling some other tasks, then go on break again, repeat throughout the day; go home and before heading to bed, check emails, answer them (related to work) and possibly do some more assignments from your home, via the internet. You might even put in 8 hours or something close to that, but none of those hours 'in-a-row' as they are intermittent throughout the day.
binocular
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Re: holidays

Post by binocular »

DNS wrote: Thu Aug 30, 2018 5:10 amI sometimes wonder if it might actually be better to have a little bit of 'vacation' from work, stress in every day and then skipping the week long, two week long vacations. /.../
I agree. Waiting for and relying on vacations is a bit like holding your breath and waiting to exhale at some unspecified time in the future. It's exhausting. It's telling yourself, "At some time in the future, I will be happy, but until then, I just have to bear the stress".

I suppose the week-long vacations and such can help, provided that one uses them actively, such as going on some physically intense trips (as opposed to lying in the sun, overeating, and sleeping half the day), or uses them for educational purposes. In my experience, it is not possible to de-stress from work if one goes to the beach or a spa for a week or two.
Hic Rhodus, hic salta!
binocular
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Re: holidays

Post by binocular »

robertk wrote: Wed Aug 29, 2018 8:53 am The findings were presented at the European Society of Cardiology congress in Munich. Martin Marshall, vice-chairman of the Royal College of GPs, said that family doctors “often recommend that patients take some time away from work or go on holiday if they are stressed”.
That sounds like avoidance copig, though:
In psychology, avoidance/avoidant coping or escape coping is a maladaptive coping mechanism[1] characterized by the effort to avoid dealing with a stressor.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avoidance_coping
Jeremy Pearson, associate medical director of the British Heart Foundation, said: “Taking time out can be a great way to relieve tension, but you can also talk to friends and family to share any troubles.”
I mean, really, these doctors are really fantastic. One of these days they will discover hot water ...
I find it outrageous that people in such high positions with so much education come up with such common-sense or naive advice and sell it as "scientific".
Hic Rhodus, hic salta!
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